The Seven Circles Act, 1874, was an act of the Cape Parliament that divided the Cape Colony into seven provinces (or "circles") for the Legislative Council elections.

Previously, the country had been divided into two large provinces, the Western and the Eastern Provinces, which had led to decades of polarisation and competition.^[1]

The Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope was bicameral, with a lower house (Legislative Assembly) and an upper house (Legislative Council). The latter had considerable power and influence on the lower house, and was elected according to two large provinces:

• The Western Province, centred around Cape Town
• The Eastern Province, centred around Port Elizabeth

The Western Province was larger, and was the seat of the country's capital city, Cape Town, however the electoral system gave the two entities near equal political power. (The Western province had only two more seats than the Eastern, though its voting population was very much larger.) The result was political competition, which gradually evolved into growing regional political parties, and then into severe polarisation between the two provinces. The instability of the system often paralyzed government.

In fear of dominance by Cape Town, the Eastern Province leaders came to demand greater British Imperial control, and a long-running separatist movement arose. Persistent disputes included frontier issues, with the Eastern Province leaders favouring a far harsher and more expansionist policy towards the neighbouring Xhosa people. The Western Province was dominated by liberals who were less expansionist and were accused by Eastern leaders of favouring the Xhosa in their frontier policy. The deadlock and regional polarization was complicated by the division between the Eastern towns of Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown, which began competing for political dominance within the Eastern Province.

The Cape at the time ran a system of representative government, whereby the legislature was elected, but executive power remained firmly in the hands of an unelected British Governor, who was appointed by the British Colonial Office. A resulting lack of accountability led to budget mismanagement and economic stagnation. Distrust of the Governor also led to a deadlock between the elected parliament and the unelected executive. Popular distrust also scuppered Governor Wodehouse's prior attempt (1869) to redraw the electoral districts.

A movement began in the Western Province to make the Executive elected and therefore accountable (or "responsible") to the local electorate. This movement for "Responsible Government" was opposed by the Eastern leaders who feared Western Province domination (as well as by conservatives in the West). However, the split in the Eastern Province party between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth, together with the mobilisation of small but growing electoral minorities such as Black African voters (who generally supported the Western Province party), allowed the Western-based leader John Molteno to institute Responsible Government in 1872.^[2]

In April 1873, Molteno (now the country's first Prime Minister) put forward the Seven Circles Bill for the first time. His government's declared policy of fighting racial and regional divisions in the country led it to believe that the only way to dilute the two-way regional polarisation was to re-draw the country's electoral divisions. It was decided that seven was a sufficiently high number to allow for regional disagreement between the entities, without instability or polarisation. The inadequacy of the current system was widely acknowledged and the act passed in the Legislative Assembly with a large majority. However in the upper house the Council's president used his casting vote to throw the bill out.^[3]

In May 1874, the act was reintroduced. The Easterners were led by "Jock" Paterson in the Assembly and by Robert Godlonton in the Council. Both fought the bill unsuccessfully. It was once again carried by a large majority in the Assembly and, on reaching the upper house, was this time passed with a comfortable majority. Though passed, the first election to take place under the new system was only in November 1878. ^[4]

The act divided the Cape of Good Hope into seven electoral provinces (or "circles"), with each being entitled to elect three representatives to the Legislative Council.

The change, together with the overall rising prosperity of the country, finally ended the regional rivalry between East & West, and put an end to the ongoing Separatist movement of the Eastern Province. In effect, it also ended the Western Province's political hegemony over the country, by dispersing the electoral entities.

The effects were also to eliminate the previous disproportionate advantage which the towns of Cape Town and Grahamstown had wielded under the previous system, whereby they had secured an unfairly large proportion of the votes, relative to their population.

In electing members, the voter was given three votes, which could be all given to one candidate, or distributed to three candidates. This was intended to secure the representation of minorities.

Representatives were elected for seven years (as opposed to the ten years under the previous system) and were to be voted in simultaneously at one time. The Presidency of the Legislative Council was still to be taken by the country's Chief Justice.^[5]